Only one thing can I do without women and that is
work, joylessly but effectively, and latterly for some reason that it is
up to you to discover, doctor, even the power of work has gone from me."
Section 4
"This afternoon brings back to me very vividly my previous visit here.
It was perhaps a dozen or fifteen years ago. We rowed down this same
backwater. I can see my companion's hand—she had very pretty hands with
rosy palms—trailing in the water, and her shadowed face smiling quietly
under her sunshade, with little faint streaks of sunlight, reflected
from the ripples, dancing and quivering across it. She was one of those
people who seem always to be happy and to radiate happiness.
"By ordinary standards," said Sir Richmond, "she was a thoroughly bad
lot. She had about as much morality, in the narrower sense of the word,
as a monkey. And yet she stands out in my mind as one of the most honest
women I have ever met. She was certainly one of the kindest. Part of
that effect of honesty may have been due to her open brow, her candid
blue eyes, the smiling frankness of her manner.... But—no! She was
really honest.
"We drifted here as we are doing now. She pulled at the sweet rushes
and crushed them in her hand. She adds a remembered brightness to this
afternoon.
"Honest. Friendly. Of all the women I have known, this woman who was
here with me came nearest to being my friend. You know, what we call
virtue in a woman is a tremendous handicap to any real friendliness with
a man. Until she gets to an age when virtue and fidelity are no longer
urgent practical concerns, a good woman, by the very definition of
feminine goodness, isn't truly herself. Over a vast extent of her being
she is RESERVED. She suppresses a vast amount of her being, holds back,
denies, hides. On the other hand, there is a frankness and honesty in
openly bad women arising out of the admitted fact that they are bad,
that they hide no treasure from you, they have no peculiarly precious
and delicious secrets to keep, and no poverty to conceal. Intellectually
they seem to be more manly and vigorous because they are, as people say,
unsexed. Many old women, thoroughly respectable old women, have the
same quality. Because they have gone out of the personal sex business.
Haven't you found that?"
"I have never," said the doctor, "known what you call an openly bad
woman,—at least, at all intimately...."
Sir Richmond looked with quick curiosity at his companion. "You have
avoided them!"
"They don't attract me."
"They repel you?"
"For me," said the doctor, "for any friendliness, a woman must be
modest.... My habits of thought are old-fashioned, I suppose, but
the mere suggestion about a woman that there were no barriers, no
reservation, that in any fashion she might more than meet me half
way..."
His facial expression completed his sentence.
"Now I wonder," whispered Sir Richmond, and hesitated for a moment
before he carried the great research into the explorer's country.
"You are afraid of women?" he said, with a smile to mitigate the
impertinence.
"I respect them."
"An element of fear."
"Well, I am afraid of them then. Put it that way if you like. Anyhow I
do not let myself go with them. I have never let myself go."
"You lose something. You lose a reality of insight."
There was a thoughtful interval.
"Having found so excellent a friend," said the doctor, "why did you ever
part from her?"
Sir Richmond seemed indisposed to answer, but Dr. Martineau's
face remained slantingly interrogative. He had found the effective
counterattack and he meant to press it. "I was jealous of her," Sir
Richmond admitted. "I couldn't stand that side of it."
Section 5
After a meditative silence the doctor became briskly professional again.
"You care for your wife," he said. "You care very much for your wife.
She is, as you say, your great obligation and you are a man to respect
obligations. I grasp that. Then you tell me of these women who have come
and gone.... About
work, joylessly but effectively, and latterly for some reason that it is
up to you to discover, doctor, even the power of work has gone from me."
Section 4
"This afternoon brings back to me very vividly my previous visit here.
It was perhaps a dozen or fifteen years ago. We rowed down this same
backwater. I can see my companion's hand—she had very pretty hands with
rosy palms—trailing in the water, and her shadowed face smiling quietly
under her sunshade, with little faint streaks of sunlight, reflected
from the ripples, dancing and quivering across it. She was one of those
people who seem always to be happy and to radiate happiness.
"By ordinary standards," said Sir Richmond, "she was a thoroughly bad
lot. She had about as much morality, in the narrower sense of the word,
as a monkey. And yet she stands out in my mind as one of the most honest
women I have ever met. She was certainly one of the kindest. Part of
that effect of honesty may have been due to her open brow, her candid
blue eyes, the smiling frankness of her manner.... But—no! She was
really honest.
"We drifted here as we are doing now. She pulled at the sweet rushes
and crushed them in her hand. She adds a remembered brightness to this
afternoon.
"Honest. Friendly. Of all the women I have known, this woman who was
here with me came nearest to being my friend. You know, what we call
virtue in a woman is a tremendous handicap to any real friendliness with
a man. Until she gets to an age when virtue and fidelity are no longer
urgent practical concerns, a good woman, by the very definition of
feminine goodness, isn't truly herself. Over a vast extent of her being
she is RESERVED. She suppresses a vast amount of her being, holds back,
denies, hides. On the other hand, there is a frankness and honesty in
openly bad women arising out of the admitted fact that they are bad,
that they hide no treasure from you, they have no peculiarly precious
and delicious secrets to keep, and no poverty to conceal. Intellectually
they seem to be more manly and vigorous because they are, as people say,
unsexed. Many old women, thoroughly respectable old women, have the
same quality. Because they have gone out of the personal sex business.
Haven't you found that?"
"I have never," said the doctor, "known what you call an openly bad
woman,—at least, at all intimately...."
Sir Richmond looked with quick curiosity at his companion. "You have
avoided them!"
"They don't attract me."
"They repel you?"
"For me," said the doctor, "for any friendliness, a woman must be
modest.... My habits of thought are old-fashioned, I suppose, but
the mere suggestion about a woman that there were no barriers, no
reservation, that in any fashion she might more than meet me half
way..."
His facial expression completed his sentence.
"Now I wonder," whispered Sir Richmond, and hesitated for a moment
before he carried the great research into the explorer's country.
"You are afraid of women?" he said, with a smile to mitigate the
impertinence.
"I respect them."
"An element of fear."
"Well, I am afraid of them then. Put it that way if you like. Anyhow I
do not let myself go with them. I have never let myself go."
"You lose something. You lose a reality of insight."
There was a thoughtful interval.
"Having found so excellent a friend," said the doctor, "why did you ever
part from her?"
Sir Richmond seemed indisposed to answer, but Dr. Martineau's
face remained slantingly interrogative. He had found the effective
counterattack and he meant to press it. "I was jealous of her," Sir
Richmond admitted. "I couldn't stand that side of it."
Section 5
After a meditative silence the doctor became briskly professional again.
"You care for your wife," he said. "You care very much for your wife.
She is, as you say, your great obligation and you are a man to respect
obligations. I grasp that. Then you tell me of these women who have come
and gone.... About
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